Tag Archives: early years

Scottish Learning Festival 2019: getting back to the basics in Scottish education

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by Rebecca Jackson

The Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) is the annual conference and exhibition for educational practitioners across Scotland. Across two days thousands of delegates and over 200 exhibitors from across the spectrum of Scottish education gathered at the SEC in Glasgow to take part in over 100 workshops and seminars reflecting the best of Scottish Education.

The conference theme this year was Achieving Excellence and Equity and across the two days delegates and speakers discussed a range of topics related to this, including the empowerment agenda for teachers and learners, how to drive improvement across all areas of education and the importance of wellbeing in developing a healthy and successful learning community, able to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Back to basics in Scottish Education

This year’s keynote address was delivered by the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney MSP. In his speech Mr Swinney encouraged delegates to get back to basics on education, emphasising his belief in the importance of the core principles of Scottish Education and how increasing the focus on the “four capacities” can help learners achieve their potential. The four capacities allow learners to become: successful learners; confident individuals; responsible citizens and effective contributors.

Giving teachers autonomy to teach

He emphasised his belief that the autonomy of teachers should be key in the classroom and that teachers are best placed to make the key calls in relation to the learning of their students.  Mr Swinney suggested that helping teachers feel like they can take responsibility for their own workload and to prioritise tasks that directly impact on learning over admin tasks was pivotal in ensuring that curriculum for excellence and the new qualifications recently introduced worked effectively for both teachers and young people. However it was clear from the reaction in the auditorium and in subsequent discussions, that there are some teachers who feel they are quite a way from being able to truly take control of their workload with many highlighting significant amounts of marking and administration and “teaching to test” which prevented them from teaching in the way they would like.

The Cabinet Secretary also faced a number of questions from the floor, including on the funding of special educational needs provision and the idea of mainstreaming (as opposed to funding specialist provision for SEN pupils), as well as questions on teacher workload, the value of National 4 qualifications and multi-level teaching, where national, intermediate and higher levels are all being taught in the same lessons. Mr Swinney said that multi-level teaching was working in some areas, and in some areas it helped to expand the range of subjects pupils are able to choose from, but he admitted that it may not work in all instances and that a review of the practice would be included in a more general review of senior education which has been ordered by the Scottish Government.

The gap that is proving difficult to close

The attainment gap was also high on the agenda,  both in the keynote and in the breakout seminars. Closing the gap and raising attainment among children, young people and learners from disadvantaged backgrounds is something which is clearly a focus of people working across the education sector  in Scotland, but the results and outcomes they are seeing look to be a mix of outstanding success stories and those young learners who are still falling through the net (who provision is not reaching and whose outcomes are not improving). Continuing the work of raising attainment through the Attainment Challenge (which has been granted funding beyond its current deadline to 2021) was highlighted, as was the effective and important work already being done in many schools to help and support those children from poorer backgrounds through their learner journey. The overriding message was to keep going because the gap is closing, even if it is not as quickly as we might like.

Everyone working together for common aims

The breakout seminars spanned topics across education, including early years, special needs education and the engagement of people from outside the school environment to create a holistic approach to the care and support of young people, including through youth work. The resounding tone of the discussions was that there is so much good work being done to support young learners in Scotland, that not only should we recognise it but we should try to share knowledge and learn lessons from it.

The conference ended with a call to action, encouraging practitioners from across the education sector in Scotland to come together, to work in partnership to improve outcomes for young people in Scotland and encourage practitioners and learners alike to strive to be the best they can be for the benefit of Scotland now and in the future.

If you enjoyed this article, keep an eye out for our second blog on the SLF, which reflects on one of the seminars attended by our Research Officer, Scott Faulds.

We have also blogged on a range of topics around education, including on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in schools. You can read more here.

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Digital childhoods: what technology means for the development of children

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By Rebecca Jackson

The recent advancement of technology in society has been fast and significant. Young adults who were children themselves less than 15 years ago have admitted that, even to them, the difference in ‘childhood’ as they remember it and how it appears to be today is stark. And for many older members of the public, the advances have made ‘childhood’ almost unrecognisable. The Scottish Universities Insight Institute is currently running a series of seminars looking at digital technology across the life course, one of which considered the role of technology in relation to young children.

Creative Commons,Ty, 2007

Image by Ty via Creative Commons

Common misconceptions

The debate around the use of digital technology by children is fraught with hearsay and sometimes distorted reporting of statistics in the mainstream media. This has resulted in confusion about what it means to be digitally literate, and an emphasis on the negative views that people have about children using technology.

These are some of the most common misconceptions as identified by a group of researchers from the Scottish Universities Insight Institute:

  • Digital technology is just laptops and computers: When many people refer to ‘digital technology’ they talk about laptops, tablet computers and desktops. In fact, the term covers a far wider range of devices and activities. This includes cameras, video games consoles, streaming music or listening to an mp3 player or iPod, using Skype or FaceTime to communicate, mobile phones, streaming videos on youtube and watching TV or DVDs.
  • Less affluent socioeconomic groups don’t have access to digital technology: While academics commented that their study showed there may not have been as many devices in lower income households, most still had access to mobile phones, televisions, the internet, a games console, an interactive toy, an mp3 player or IPod, camera or a tablet computer.
  • Children engaging with digital technology comes at the expense of ‘traditional play’: Studies have shown that, contrary to popular belief, children still have more access to, and spend more time playing with, ‘traditional toys’ such as dolls, cars, soft toys and outdoor equipment. The study also highlighted that children use digital experiences to inform their own imaginative play. They were observed acting out scenes or engaging with imaginary characters from films or television programmes and pretending to use laptops and mobile phones during play, rather than using them directly.
  • Children know more about digital technology than adults: Children don’t know anything until they are exposed to it – much of children’s exposure comes from parents and is representative of the use by other family members. A study also showed that if a child was completing an activity using digital technology (a video game for example) which they found too difficult or “fiddly” then this could deter them from using technology in the future.
  • Children using digital technology are more socially isolated and reclusive: This is a common stereotype which is normally directed at older children and adolescents. However children of all ages have been found to use digital technology as a facilitator of social relationships. This includes the use of websites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as the use of Skype and FaceTime to communicate with overseas relatives or friends.
Creative Commons,Antonio Thomás Koenigkam Oliveira, 2012

Image by Antonio Thomás Koenigkam Oliveira via Creative Commons

Blended learning

Many academics who study the impact of digitisation on children (or people in general) highlight the unhelpful nature of the “good/bad” debate.  As one researcher at a recent conference held at Strathclyde University stated: “Blended learning – a combination of digital and traditional learning – is best for children and their development; quite often in studies we have found that children do this naturally themselves.”

Examples of this which were given was a child acting out a scene from the Disney film Frozen with soft toys, once they had seen the film on the television. Others could include printing out characters from films or TV shows to colour in with pencil or crayon, and children using a camera to capture memories or take photos of things which are interesting to them while outside playing or on a walk.

kid-taking-photos-with-cheap-digital-camera

Image by Photoflurry via Creative Commons

Same moral objections, different context

The technology may be different, but the moral questions are the same ones that have been plaguing innovations and inventions for hundreds of years. The arrival of comics, the transmission of radio (which was once thought to be toxic for children to hear), the spread of ideas promoted by television, even the electrification of homes, have all been met with some level of trepidation by the general public. Fears about digital technology and the normalisation of its use in everyday life will, academics feel, eventually be surpassed by a new technology which we can panic over instead.

Use in education

This is one of the more contentious issues for many teachers and local authorities. There are questions about the extent to which digital technologies should be integrated in to the curriculum, particularly in the early years, and the role of the teacher in relation to digital learning. It is also clear that teacher enthusiasm and training in using digital technology is important to ensure that children get the most out of digital teaching.

Some schools have trialled bring your own device to school initiatives, although the reception given to these has been mixed. Many schools and teachers also make use of interactive whiteboards and on-line portals to set homework and to give children access to resources. There has been a suggestion that children and teachers should work with software developers to produce more apps, programmes and effective digital learning resources.

In Scotland, integrating digital elements to the curriculum has been improved by the transition to the Curriculum for Excellence. However, some schools still struggle with a lack of resources and have to continue to make use of an “ICT slot” in order to allow children to be able to access technology on a one-to-one basis.

The general consensus among education practitioners towards digital technology appears to be positive however, with many schools using online channels to communicate with pupils and parents. Some classes have blogs which the children are encouraged to contribute to, and others have utilised online web chats to twin with schools abroad in a  modern-day pen pal set up.

Creative Commons, Kathy Cassidy, 2006

Image by Kathy Cassidy via Creative Commons

A right to digital literacy?

Another issue being discussed by academics and policy makers is the idea of a right to digital literacy. In the view of many, digital learning should be integrated into everyday traditional learning to equip children with digital skills. Failing to prepare children, some academics argue, would inhibit their ability to contribute effectively in a digitised world.

It is clear that the debate around digital technology and child development will continue, and there is a need for both further study and better communication of research findings to the wider public.

Read our other recent blogs on children’s policy:

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